William Robert Cornish

“ I believe that the training and education of the women of India is a necessary consequence of your own culture. You will not rest satisfied until the female members of your families are able to meet you on a common intellectual level. Man's imperfect nature craves for sympathy in his toils, aspirations, doubts, and anguish, and where shall he find the sympathy and loving help for which his soul earns, if not amongst the women of his family, who know his strength and his weakness, and love him none the less for his imperfections? ”

“ The difficulties before you in putting your desires into practice are neither few nor unimportant, but I doubt not that the women upon whom the spirit of knowledge and wisdom has already descended, will be your strongest supporters in those domestic reforms which may favor the sound teaching of useful knowledge to the females of India. Tour most ancient lawgiver, though his ideas of woman's fitness for learning were not in accord with modern thought, forcibly impresses upon you the obligation of doing honor to woman. ”

“ Education in India, as you know, is a very one-sided affair, insomuch that until very recently, it was confined to the male sex alone, and at the present moment, the education of the female sex is pursued under grave disadvantages. The truest friends of the people of India cannot but entertain serious misgivings as to the outcome of a system which practically excludes one sex from the advantages of mental training and discipline ”

“ It is the opinion of eminent men who have studied the subject that the transmission of certain mental and physical attributes of a race is more commonly influenced by the mother than the father; and the simple fact that nearly all the men of high eminence in Science, Art, and other pursuits, now living, have descended from mothers of more than average mental vigor and capacity, should be enough to cause us to ponder whether the Indian system is a wise one, or suited to the development of the highest Educated man intellectual power of the people. ”

“ Whether you betake yourselves to trade, commerce, agriculture, or industrial handicrafts, there are vast and unexplored fields before you, which, so long as you enter upon them discreetly, prudently, and honorably, will afford you the means of living and enjoyment, and opportunities of demonstrating to your countrymen, that a sound, mental and moral training is the best of all preparations, for any and every pursuit in life. ”

“ India, to its credit be it said, has needed no poor law. The obligation to feed the poor, and more unfortunate members of a family has always been regarded as a sacred duty by its principal members. The simplicity of your domestic life has enabled even the poorest members of society to fulfil these obligations, and I can vouch for the fact that they are fulfilled except when great natural calamity causes a failure of the food supplies, and there is no bread to give to him that asketh. ”

“ If that training has been successful, your future lives will prove. As you have living examples of graduates of former years, many of whom I am pleased to see around me, leading noble, pure, and honorable lives, filling the highest stations in State service, and in the learned professions, with the unqualified approbation and respect of all who know them, so we hope you will serve as examples worthy of imitation to those who come after you, and become men of light and leading in your generation. ”

“ A man to be of use in his generation must not be a mere bookworm, fattening his memory with obsolete and forgotten lore, but he must live in the present, and whet the edge of his intellect by friction against modern minds, and the more he studies modern literature, and especially the literature devoted to a record of scientific thought and progress, the more capable will he be of forming a true estimate of the extent of his own knowledge and deficiencies for the work appointed him to do. ”

“ Most of you, graduates in Arts, have after due consideration, probably formed some schemes in respect to your future means of livelihood. Some will doubtless devote their lives to the education and training of the young, and surely, no noble career can present itself to those having inclination and aptitude for such work, than the influencing for good the character of the infant generation, which shall in due order be the manhood of the next. ”

“ So strongly have the disadvantages of the lop-sided system of culture prevailing in India appeared to me, that I have often thought, and said, that given the position of a Dictator, and with full command of the State purse-strings, I would spend no public money on education, other than the primary teaching of both sexes, and the higher training of the future wives and mothers of India, until the existing disparity between the culture of the two sexes had in a great degree ceased. ”

“ In every life, no matter how it may be engrossed by professional duty, and care for the things of the moment, some leisure must fall, which you may pass in absolute idleness, and mental vacuity, or in storing your minds with the wisdom of the past, or in following the ramifications of modern thought. ”

“ Remember that in the varied service of the State each department has its own special work, and that mere general culture and intelligence, as implied by your University Degree, will not enable you to dispense with the special training required for your special departmental duties. You may be inclined to consider it a grievance that men of greater departmental experience, but of less culture than yourselves, are preferred before you ”

“ In regard to Medical Degrees, I have no doubt whatever, that the local authorities who now largely employ Medical men for the charge of Hospitals and Dispensaries, will ere long insist on the possession of a University Degree by those whom they employ, and that the proportion of Medical graduates, from this and other causes, will steadily increase. I am not without hope also that the recent activity in railway extension and other public works of magnitude in many parts of India, may cause a demand for the services of more local graduates in Engineering. ”

“ In Literature, Art, and Science, "the old order changeth, yielding place to new" with such rapid strides, that unless a man remains a zealous student throughout his life, he must be left behind in the branches of knowledge which are needful to his professional usefulness. Let me then advise you to maintain, both in the near and distant future, those habits of mental discipline which have enabled you to obtain Degrees in this University. ”

“ This University, very properly, does not deal with theological questions, but leaves every man free to worship his Creator, and to seek His help and guidance in the manner that seems best in accord with his hereditary training or honest convictions, but this much I may say, that your education will have been but of small benefit to you, if it has not strengthened and expanded your views of the Divine Government of the Universe. ”

“ If the education you have received has been acquired in a spirit of love and humility, you will profit by all opportunities of imparting your knowledge to others, and, in the words of the poet, you will be amongst the number of the "wise men" who seek to "build themselves". ”

“ We live now in the days of a higher civilization, and in an age when men spend much of their substance in luxury, or on the non-essentials of existence. I would not have you depart from the simple habits, inherited from a long line of ancestors, and which the experience of countless generations has proved to be best suited to the inhabitants of tropical lands. ”

“ Time will not suffice me to touch upon a variety of subjects of deep and vital import, but I should like you to understand that your educational training, ending with the ceremonial of to-day, has been conducted with the view of making you better and stronger men, physically, morally, and Self-denial the law of being intellectually. ”

“ Referring once more to the statistics of the Madras University, I find that the higher education is still mainly restricted to that class of the community which for ages past, has been noted for its intellectual endowment. Of the 1,349 Bachelors in Arts, 899 come from the Brahman community, which community represents only one twenty-sixth part of the Hindu population, The remaining twenty-five parts of the Hindu people have furnished only 252 Bachelors in Arts, —a fact which shows that the higher education has permeated but slightly the lives of the greater numbers of the people. ”

“ The lightheartedness with which people, otherwise thrifty and self-denying, will incur overwhelming debts, sanctioned by custom and usage, is a matter that strikes strangers to your countrymen with astonishment, and you may well use your personal influence in discouraging habits which lie at the root of three-fourths of the chronic poverty of the Indian people. ”

“ He says, "Where females are honored, there the Deities are pleased, but where they are dishonored, there all religious acts become fruitless," [2] and again "where female relations are made miserable, the family of him who makes them so, very soon wholly perishes, but where they are not unhappy, the family always increases." How can you honor and add to the happiness of your womankind better than by making them partakers of your intellectual pursuits, as well as the sharers in your domestic joys and sorrows ? ”

“ Food and clothing must Alcohol and meat not essential to health vary in different countries, as climate and other conditions vary, but in adhering to the simplicity of life practised by your forefathers, you will have the sanction and approval of some of the most eminent of modern scientists, who have come to the conclusion, hat alcoholic drinks and strong meats are not essential to health, life, or mental and physical vigor, while the abuse of strong drinks, at any rate, has proved a curse- to the Northern peoples. ”

“ The influence of a mother on her offspring is most powerful and farreaching. Her physical and mental characteristics pass to the fruit of her womb, and her children learn of her instinctively, before they are capable of speech or intelligent thought. ”

“ The careful and critical study of classical works relating to history, poetry, philosophy, and any branch of science of which you have mastered the principles, will prove the most effectual remedy against that mental hebetude, which is apt to overtake us, when we have attained, as we think, the summit of our ambition. ”

“ Having seen theSelf-respect of the Indian people of the land in times of prosperity, and also bowed down in adversity, under the influence of a terrible national calamity, let me add that I entertain a profound and lasting respect for their many virtues, and a high admiration of their keen sense of self-respect. ”

“ If you bear in mind that no man can live wholly for himself, that in your daily lives duty should take the place of inclination, that self-sacrifice should be the law of your being, and that selfish objects and motives should find no response in your hearts, you will have risen to a high conception of your responsibilities, in connection with the days that may be in store for you. ”

“ The presence here of an unusually large number of graduates in Arts, on whom Degrees have this day been conferred, testifies to the fact that the regulations of this University are no hindrance to higher education. Year by year, the tests become more efficient and practical, and a Degree in Arts, Law, Medicine, or Engineering is not granted until the candidate has shown a competent knowledge of the subjects in which he is examined. ”

“ But let it be borne in mind that the State cannot create offices because graduates abound, and that when the State service, and the learned professions have drawn their supplies of educated labor, there will still remain a number of graduates, who, of choice or necessity, will have to seek elsewhere for occupations suited to their circumstances. ”

“ And when the people shall have been shown the importance of cleanly habits as affecting their health, you may well direct their attention to some other customs which have an important bearing on their happiness and prosperity. ”

“ The wealthy may indulge in such a custom without hurt to their estate, but see how pernicious is the example to the lower classes, when a poor man, apeing his rich brother, does not hesitate to sell himself, and all belonging to him, into life-long slavery, for the price of a wedding feast! ”

“ The prophecy was a cruel libel on the toilers and workers of your countrymen, and women, and has been completely falsified, for the broad truth remains, that immediately on the cessation of the food scarcity, the people everywhere resumed their normal habits of providing for the necessities of their dependants, and for years past the State has incurred no expenditure in the relief of Indian paupers. ”

“ If you possess ability, zeal, and integrity, advancement and promotion must follow, as surely as the night follows the day, because every department of the State has an interest in being well served, and efficiency in lower grades is the best passport to the higher. ”

“ What you want is accurate knowledge, and a fixed determination to do justice to all classes of your local community. In every town or village, you will find work to be done, which shall benefit your fellow-men. ”